You get to the airport late, rush through check-in and passport control and then just as you're easing into your minuscule seat for a 12-hour trip, you remember something. You forgot to stop by W.H. Smith for a bonkbuster and a real magazine. Now you are trapped with nothing but a few peanuts and an in-flight magazine for amusement.

Few reading experiences can be less pleasurable, unless you are flying Virgin Atlantic or British Airways, which have long taken their magazines seriously, offering plenty of stuff you really want to read. This month they have both revamped their offerings, making them even more readable and putting them even further ahead of the pack.

Here we review the improved versions, plus a handful of the competition which, unfortunately, is lagging behind woefully.

British Airways: Highlife Rating: 4/5

Put Jude Law on the cover and few women can fail to flick further. 'The real me is the person at home eating toast,' he says. A quick turn to page 50 delivers more steamy pictures and a pacey read to match. The magazine seems to have a younger, more stylish feel than before - a little bit of a Wallpapery influence shows up in the typeface and design. There are lots of small items to browse - tips on shopping (Jetset musts include Berluti shoes), cool hotels and celebs such as Vivienne Westwood. The main offputting thing is the over-abundance of advertisements and junk stapled inside, which makes flicking the thing difficult. Will Self's feature on Walking Britain in a Day, written before the foot and mouth epidemic, was a typical example of magazine deadlines clashing with more up to date events.

BA: Business Life Rating: 4/5

Sex and money are always guaranteed to draw the readers in. BA has managed to combine both in a front cover shot of Madonna pitching an article inside on her multi-million pound business empire. Sharp designs and witty writing mix with indulgent reviews of fast cars, consumer gadgets and a half-page eulogy of the Cuban cigar. This redesigned magazine for the business traveller is something you'd definitely want to take off the plane.

Virgin Atlantic: Hot Air Rating: 4/5

The front cover photograph looking up Angelina Jolie's nostrils gets you interested, but the words are confusingly run together: 'Audley Harrison Planet Of The Apes Daft Punk The Rebirth of Berlin Subbuteo Streakers'. God knows how a non-English speaker would cope, and the inside is terrifyingly trendy.

It's big on architecture and design, with Berlin and Guggenheim making appearances, and it feels like a real magazine, rather than a freebie. It's beautifully laid out, advertisements blend in rather than clash, and it is printed on rich matt paper.

This is one of the few airline mags you'd want to take home. There are lots of snippets about hotels, or things to see, which are worth cutting out. Only criticism is it's a bit top heavy on boys' toys - golf, football, Lego, cars, tigers, trainers and travel gear (but that's not surprising really as it's edited by former Arena editor Ekow Eshun).

We'd have liked a bit more on handbags, but maybe we'll have to wait till the next issue for that.

Icelandair - Iceland Review Rating: 1/5

The dark cover of a man with overgrown eyebrows peeping from the shadows is gloomy and depressing, and its headline, 'Solitary farming', doesn't set the pulse racing.

The typeface and layout are clean and modern, but rather static throughout. The features are worthy and dull. How about 'Icelandic chess has a multifarious nature...' Even the apparently promising feature on erotic clubs in Reykjavik reads like a local authority newsletter. It tells us: 'Currently serving her second term as the democratically-elected major of Reykjavik, Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, voices her concern over the number of erotic clubs operating in the capital area.'

American Airlines: American Way Rating: 0/5

It's a big struggle to get past the front page. Printing all the words in capital letters is guaranteed to make you go cross-eyed. The inside is packed thick with cardboard advertising inserts and bits of paper selling phone cards and frequent flyer memberships. We can't find anything else of interest to read, and wonder, who on earth is this for?

Cathay Pacific: Discovery Rating: 2/5

There's nothing Zeitgeist about this magazine. A cover story on the Tate Modern turns out to be a rather dull overview of the building's history and its art. The layout of the piece is dated and boring. Some impressive photography of Angkor Wat makes up for another rather lifeless article.

Rather bizarrely, the picture captions are bilingual, but the rest of the articles are in English. Perhaps the Hong Kong Chinese only look at the pictures? Not something you'd want to take home with you.

Qantas: The Australian Way Rating: 3/5

A dark picture of a Qantas aircraft is a poor choice of cover picture for an interesting in-flight fashion shoot feature. Few plugs for this Australian carrier's own products make this a more refreshing read, but the editorial fails to stand out from its rivals. Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood spices things up when she waxes lyrical about her home city, Toronto, but the rest is pretty standard stuff.

Air New Zealand: Panorama Rating: 3/5

A cover picture of actress-of-the-moment Cate Blanchett makes this magazine more of a page turner. But it still features the obligatory introduction from president and chief executive Gary Toomey, updating you on the airline's network development, reminding you that this is not something you just buy over the counter at a newsagents. The publication tries hard to be trendy with a LookCool section on the latest gadgets.